Computer operating systems (OS), including the WINDOWS® OS (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.) and the UNIX® OS (UNIX System Laboratories, Inc., Basking Ridge, N.J.), often use different mechanisms for user identification, authentication, and resource access control. In a heterogeneous network, a network that includes at least two different OS networks, users normally have separate accounts for each OS network, or alternatively, at least one OS network account that differs in some aspect from other OS network accounts. For example, in a heterogeneous network, including WINDOWS® OS and UNIX® OS networks, user information (e.g., identifications and/or names) is typically stored and used differently for each OS network; thus, in general, no association exists for user information between the OS networks. Consequently, a need exists to associate user information between OS networks. In addition, separate name spaces with different user names and different identification mechanisms pose problems for services that provide cross-domain resource access. Thus, a need exists for services that establish a relationship between user identification in different name spaces while allowing users to use a name space in its native OS network.